It is a common problem that when some pre-baked foods, such as pastries, battered fish and pizzas which have a high moisture content, are heated or cooked in a microwave oven, the resulting product frequently has a soggy or soupy consistency that is generally found unpalatable.
In order to improve its palatability, the soggy product is often reheated in the same microwave oven or placed in a conventional electric heating oven to evaporate the excess moisture therefrom. Although this may remove some of the moisture from the product, it may also have the undesired affect of burning parts of the food, such as the edges of a pastry, and is wasteful of energy.
It has been found that most of the moisture in soggy microwaved foods accumulates at the bottom of the food nearest the plate upon which the food sits. This has been attributed to poor or ineffective air circulation in the region between the food and the microwave plate, which is thought to create a sink for the concentration of moisture exited during microwave energization of the water molecules in the food.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to improve the circulation of air around rood being heated or cooked in a microwave oven so as to avoid the shortcomings of the prior art.